Creating content that resonates

Jan 12

Written By Andrew Woodbury

Don’t post then do. Do, then post.

Read time: 5 minutes

Here’s our TTT for this week on how to grow your online teaching business.

What is TTT? A Tip, Takeaway, and Task. On Thursday.

Enjoy!

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Tip: Do more interesting stuff

Content creation is often a point of stress for teacherpreneurs.

What should I post?
Where should I get ideas?
How often should I post?

These are good questions of course, but we argue they are in the reverse order.

If you’re thinking about what to post, you’ve missed the point.

Here’s the rub: you shouldn’t be thinking about what to post. Rather, you should be posting about what you’re doing.

And if you’re not doing anything? Well, start doing more interesting stuff. And then post about it.

Takeaway: It’s about helping

Let’s address a few misconceptions first.

#1: Audience curation isn’t a numbers game.

That is, it isn’t about getting the most followers as humanly possible. It’s about getting in front of ideal clients. There is absolutely zero point in amassing followers if they are not the type of people you help.

It’s not about becoming famous; it’s about growing a business.

#2: Your content should filter in and filter out

With a quality over quantity approach, your content should start filtering your audience.

That is, people who identify with what you talk about will stay with you and become your advocates. Those who don’t will unfollow and find their motivation elsewhere.

Both outcomes are ideal.

This way, you start growing an audience of people who:

resonate with you and your story
gain value from being in their network
will tell their friends to follow you as well

A residual effect of this is even if one person doesn’t need what you post about, they will tell their colleagues, friends, etc. who might.

Which brings us to the most important point: you should post to help people.

Many people think you have to post to get clients.

This is a misnomer. It’s actually the other way around.

By posting to help, you build a relationship in an organic fashion and people can go through their own personal buying cycle on their own terms.

People who follow you likely want to:

get a little value
see how you work
see how it’s worked for other people
imagine how it could work for them too

And what is it they are imagining? The process you talk about and that you teach others to use.

What is that process? That thing you do.

Which brings us back to the beginning: don’t post content; post stories and snippets of:

what you’re doing
the people you help
how you help them
steps your audience needs to move forward with their journey

For example, if your niche is helping people succeed in job interviews, tell stories about your own struggles and how you overcame it. Or talk about 5 strategies you used to handle one type of question.

If your niche is about improving hotel staffs’ communicative competence, talk about your own experience in hotels.

So, don’t think about what to post; post about what you’re already doing.

Task: Do, then create

Your task this week is to:

A. do something interesting, and then create a series of posts about it.

B. reflect on the interesting things you already do, and then create a series of posts about it.

The key to growing an audience of ideal clients is to show you understand them, both their struggles and their desired situation.

Think about the times you’ve been in their situation and what you did to overcome that. Break it down, including all the steps and strategies you implemented.

Often times, our ideal client is us two years ago. What would you two years ago want to know? Talk to that person.

A question you may ask yourself: How long will it take to grow your audience like this?

As long as it takes.

The outcome isn’t the goal.

Doing the thing is the goal.

Last week we talked about consistency.

Your big task this week is to become a person who does cool stuff. And then posts about it.

Hope this helps.